On Friday, the Chamber of Commerce voted 61 to 30 in favour of a resolution expressing concerns about government's acquisition of private property, namely BEL and BTL.
The resolution more or less echoes what was contained in a draft resolution which went our in early July. It calls on government - among many other things - to "refrain from taking any action to deprive (property owners of their right to) freedom from arbitrary deprivation of private property."
Well the Prime Minister received the resolution - and it seems - he was not at all impressed. Let's put it like this, the Chamber's letter and resolution was in the vicinity of 600 words; the PM's response? Less than 50 words! In a letter dated yesterday, the PM writes - and we quote: Government completely rejects the premises on which the resolution was based. If therefore acceptance of the premises is a precondition of your working with the government in serious partnership, then we have a problem."
End of letter - and pretty much the end of that story. In this regard, it is of note that the Honourable Finnegan made it clear that government's latter rejection of preventative detention was based on the reasoning that the measure was to soothe the business class - and the cooling off on it, is an attempt to curry favour with the poor.
